If You Want to Pursue the Truth, You’ll Never Fit In

You know the proverbial pendulum swing — the tendency for people to go from one extreme to the next? Or the slippery slope, where if you believe or disbelieve one thing, you’ll inevitably end up believing or disbelieving a whole host of other things? They’re often used as scare tactics to keep the faithful walking in lockstep intellectual agreement. Dabble in feminism and you’ll end up a pro-baby killing atheist with an STD and a PhD in evolutionary biology. (So don’t dabble in feminism.)

There is, of course, some truth to these metaphors. Certain trains of thought, once abandoned or taken up, do connect well to certain other trains of thought. This is why, for instance, most of the egalitarians I know are more sympathetic toward social justice, and most of the complementarians I know gravitate more toward conservatism’s emphasis on order and authority. A strong emphasis on equality for women fits well with advocacy for racial and LGBTQ+ minorities. A strong belief that order and hierarchy does not undermine equality suits a conservative outlook that highly values respect for authority (e.g., the police, or the sitting Republican president). It makes sense that our beliefs about the structure of home life would spill into the structure of political life, and vice versa.

Hence it’s true that if you change your mind on complementarianism or egalitarianism, you’re liable to change your mind on an avalanche of other things, as we’ve all noted in people who switch ideological affiliations.

But I’ve made a recent breakthrough. I’ve found that even with the obvious fact that certain beliefs complement others well, the biggest reason people tend to jump on the pendulum or slide down a slippery slope is not intellectual consistency. It’s regular old peer pressure.

When I left fundamentalism for unfundamentalism (whatever that meant), I vowed not to repeat the same mistakes I made in my past. I would not buy into a group, a person, or an ideology hook, line, and sinker — at least not so much that it prohibited me from examining them with an impartial and critical eye. I would not shut up that gut feeling that asked me to question. I would not parrot party lines before researching them myself. I would not demonize those who disagreed with me. I would not be a bigot. I would not get caught up in promoting my group’s agenda over the truth.

In fact, I wouldn’t even join a group or adopt a label without thinking it over for a very, very long time.

So I was shocked when I found myself repeating some of my past fundamentalist mistakes — even though no one was threatening me with hellfire, and even though I technically didn’t even have a group to pressure me.

I would tweetstorm about what my Twitter tribe hated. I struggled to listen to that inner voice that warned me when I was giving up a deeply held belief just because that deeply held belief would cause conflict with my new friends. I found it was extremely hard to hold to any belief strongly without falling into somebody’s category of a bigot, no matter how tolerant and nuanced I strove to be. Even thoughtful, respectful groups had a point of no return — they wouldn’t damn me to hell, but they certainly wouldn’t like my comment on Facebook, and I would definitely get kicked out if I spoke up for my taboo beliefs.

My courage, my feeling of freedom to question and seek the truth, my desire to speak out, waned when I knew that the majority of my group would disagree with me. Oh, I didn’t always mind ticking off fundamentalists with my bold tweets and courageous blog posts. But I was honest enough to know that that wasn’t really bravery at all. There was always a safety net of people there to listen to me complain about the backlash and rev me up to fight the good fight again.

Bravery, I knew from experience, was speaking the truth even when you have everything to lose. I’d just risked losing my faith, my family, and my friends when I let go of fundamentalism. It was devastating, and I wasn’t eager to do anything like it so soon after finding a community that understood me.

What was wrong with me? Where was this fear, cowardice, and groupie-ism coming from? I had sworn off the echo chamber! I knew better!

According to Jonathan Haidt, in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, I was suffering from a condition called being human. In his research, he discovered that the human mind is designed not for impartially seeking the truth but for selectively filtering reality in order to bolster our social group. We naturally take an us vs. them posture, and we naturally feel our group is better, even if our group is nothing more consequential than being a Packers fan.

I was unconsciously participating in the kind of “truth-seeking” for which my brain was designed: the kind that knits me together with a group to parry outside blows, the kind that makes life certain and easy, that makes me feel accepted and stable.

It would be social suicide to rewire my brain to seek the pure, unadulterated truth apart from what my social group felt. That sort of truth-seeking — the actual kind, where fitting in doesn’t matter — is incredibly unnatural to human brains. The ability to be impartial, nuanced, and thorough — there’s a reason it’s so rare, and a reason people who possess it come across as “highly functioning sociopaths,” as Sherlock Holmes would say.

While I wouldn’t say I’ve got that gift, I am cursed with the two least compatible traits: the intense desire to know the truth at all costs and the intense desire to be approved, understood, and included.

I didn’t find my journey after fundamentalism to be a slippery slope at all. It was a tug of war between these two desires — truth and social approval. Just when I wanted to settle in for a long slide, the desire for truth would start rapping at my conscience. There’s hypocrisy here. Why are you afraid to call it out? This doesn’t make sense no matter how long you’ve researched it. Why are you still trying to believe it? You don’t actually agree with this. Why are you pretending to celebrate it?

The answer was always fear — fear of losing my place in a group.

For the first time, I understood what Jesus meant when he said that the world would hate you, but pick up your cross. Being true to what I believed was good and right was a series of little deaths, little devastations, little ostracizations every single day. The whole truth didn’t lie in any one organization, person, book, movement, or ideology, so I could never check my brain and silence my conscience.

I can’t be a feminist, I’m told, because I have a pro-life ethic from conception to death, and I can’t be truly pro-life because I’m a feminist. I’m not sex-positive, they say, because I take a negative stance on pornography, polyamory, and sex outside of committed relationships, but I’m still immoral for being sex-positive. The Pew Research Center categorizes me as a the right-leaning “Young Outsider” on politics, even though I’m regularly called a liberal. My gentle parenting group refuses to even entertain my belief that there’s a way to do gentle, child-led sleep coaching, but I’d get kicked out of regular parenting forums for my strident opposition to spanking.

And I didn’t enjoy Wonder Woman as much as I was supposed to. Where am I to go if we can’t even agree on Wonder Woman?!

I would ask you to pity me, except that I have always found someone to agree with me on a particular topic (even Wonder Woman). But the problem with having opinions is that it’s hard, if not impossible, to find someone who agrees with me on every topic, much less a whole group of people.

Instead of fighting this social reality, I’m working toward accepting it. As long as I care deeply about the beliefs I hold, I will never fully fit in, I won’t always be popular, and I won’t go through life without trodding on some toes, no matter how gracious and nuanced I try to be. (And I refuse to use the fact that I might get namecalled and misunderstood to purposefully offend and misunderstand others.) That makes being a social creature hard, if not impossible. But that’s the nature of truth-seeking with a human brain designed for social acceptance.

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14 thoughts on “If You Want to Pursue the Truth, You’ll Never Fit In”

Wow. Thank you for sharing this. You’ve put into words what I am currently going through in all this searching and “finding who I am and what I believe” business. I’m falling away from one group, yet I’m not going far enough to join the other. You’re so right: if we are really true to all our beliefs we won’t fit in as well as we’d like. I’m finding being out here on my own is scary, but I think it’s good. I don’t know anyone who matches my particular stance on everything, not even close. It’s very strange. No wonder I stayed so long in the safe zone. It’s easier to not question our beliefs when it kicks us into no-man’s land.

So true!! It takes so much guts to enter what you call “no man’s land.” And I would agree with you — it’s scary, but good. It’s hard, but it’s so freeing to be honest with myself about what I do and don’t believe.

As usual, very well stated. The scriptures state clearly that we are to look for truth in all places. God does want us to be part of the flock, but certainly to follow the shepherd not the sheep. Would you mind reading my latest blog? I’m interested to know what you think of it.

If pursuing the truth means I will not fit in, I am pretty sure I don’t want to fit in with that group. Yes, human brains are not designed to be rational, but shouldn’t we at least try? Of course, I have it a little easier because I have never really fit in. I bet there are at least a few people who think describing me as a “highly functioning sociopath” would not be that far off the mark. Not because I behave rationally all the time – I most certainly don’t – but because the number of people who’s opinion matters to me enough to influence my beliefs is very very small.
More seriously, there are people on both sides of every divide – egalitarian or complementarian, liberal or conservative, etc. – that are just “following the party-line” so to speak, but there are other truth-seekers out there too – on both sides of those lines. I started reading your blog back when you were mostly (or entirely) complementarian, but I kept reading it because then, as now, I saw in your writing critical thinking, analysis, and yes, truth-seeking. And I have never seen you demonize someone for disagreeing with you, regardless of what others in the group you currently call “yours” do. I have no doubt that will continue. I hope so anyway – because there really is no way to do gentle, child-led sleep coaching. ;-)
Adele

I’ve always admired people like you who couldn’t care less about what other people think while at the same time following bloggers like me who disagreed with you. :) (You don’t strike me as a highly functioning sociopath. ;)) I agree wholeheartedly that trying to fit into a group where truth is not prioritized is silly and we should certainly try to be rational, but my natural weakness to care about what other people think and fit in makes that hard for me.

P.S. “There really is no way to do gentle, child-led sleep coaching.” FIGHT ME. :D

I don’t share all your beliefs, but I’m definitely balancing on the fence there with you. Politically I’ve always considered myself an independent, but there’s a whole lot more wrong out there than right, right now. I feel your struggle.

As always, this is so well articulated. You are describing to a T a lot of my current struggles as an ex-fundamentalist. I know that I’m still a Christian, but other than that, I have no idea who I am theologically or politically anymore. Trying to sort things out.

Well, I know that I can’t stand Trump and Trump-worship. Didn’t even like him when I was a Republican.

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Ezer is a lifestyle blog for egalitarian Christian women. Our readers are intelligent and compassionate, interested in the lives of others and engaged with the ecumenical Christian tradition. read more